too much month‏ (from the pres)

Dear Parents and Families,

We hope you are enjoying your November as much as we are. The temperatures were in the 70's today so we can't complain about anything. The first time I wrote to parents I explained about tornados. So many new missionaries have come since then that I just want to make sure those parents know we are not in the tornado season right now, so don't even think about it.

Today I will explain a little about the finances of the missionaries. (That is why this is titled "Too Much Month.") We all know that story. Your $400 dollars goes to Salt Lake. Each mission has a budget to cover expenses and we have an account to pay rent and utilities for the missionaries. Our wonderful office missionaries keep everything running well. Each missionary has an MSF card. (Missionary Support Fund) He/she uses that card to pay for food, sundries, postage, dry cleaning, washing the car, cleaning supplies, etc. The missionaries get $135 dollars at the beginning of each month. It isn't much but if they are careful it is enough. In most of the areas members feed them often and take good care of them. Learning to live on a limited budget is another great learning experience of the mission. (It will prepare them for marriage!") We have varying degrees of success in making the money last. Some manage to have money left at the end of the month. Others go right out and spend the money and end up with nothing for two weeks. One of the things they do is eat out at restaurants. President Gee isn't real excited about that but they think it is fun to eat together after District Meeting and sometimes other days as well. A while ago I tried a little survey and found about half of the missionaries are successful at living on their budget. The rest dig into their personal funds, or maybe even ask you for more money. President Gee and I are concerned if they create a hardship for you by doing this. You may think they will starve if they don't get more money. You can handle this as you see fit, but from our point of view, it would be better for them to learn to make do. There are occasions when they do need some personal funds. If they need to see a doctor or get medicine they pay a ten dollar co-pay for each of these. Sometimes there are bicycle repairs to take care of as well. We hate to think they are depleting their savings accounts to eat out or buy excess keepsakes, etc. However, sometimes they are a bit too frugal and let their clothes get looking pretty shabby. With that little bit of information from us, hopefully you will know what your missionary should be doing. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Things are going pretty well for the mission. The outlook for baptisms for November is good. The missionaries are still working hard and we appreciate all they do. Last evening President Gee and I had a good experience. The Edmond 2nd ward Bishop invited us to meet with the ward council and talk through exactly how they should go about taking charge of the missionary work in the ward and coordinating with the missionaries. Elder Salisbury and Elder Hawker were there as well. There was a great feeling of willingness to work together and try to reach out to less active and part-member families. It was fun to watch them catch the vision. We know that if every ward would really make the ward council function as outlined there would be an explosion of success. The way to do it is laid out by prophets, seers, and revelators. It just takes time to get everyone on board. The nature of missionary work would certainly change because they would be teaching more and resorting to tracting less. We hope members continue to start to "get it" and we become effective at working together.

Eight missionaries will be leaving us this week. We know there are eight very happy families. We will miss them. We will be welcoming nine new missionaries and look forward to working with them. Have a good week. Keep those prayers coming. We are working to "Go Forward and Not Backward. On, On To The Victory!"
Love, Sister Gee (and President Gee)